Bruce Springsteen Releases ‘Nebraska’ Box Set With Electric Versions and Live Film

Bruce Springsteen released Nebraska 1982 on Oct. 24. This box set packs four CDs and a Blu-ray disc. Inside, fans will find outtakes, electric versions, and live performances from his 1982 album. The set arrived after the film, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, hit theaters, telling how the original record was made.

One disc carries nine outtakes from those sessions. Three tracks later appeared in different versions on 1984's Born in the U.S.A. The collection also holds acoustic takes of "Downbound Train" and "Working on the Highway." Other tracks on the disc are "Losin' Kind," "Child Bride," and "Gun in Every Home." They were all previously unreleased. "The Big Payback" and an acoustic "Pink Cadillac" complete the outtakes.

Another CD features the electric Nebraska. Springsteen discovered this version in his vaults. It contains six songs from the released album, plus early takes of "Born in the U.S.A." and "Downbound Train." Members of the E Street Band contributed to these recordings, but the electric arrangements don't stray far from the acoustic ones that were released in 1982.

A third disc offers a remastered version of the 1982 album — the fourth CD and Blu-ray present live performances of all 10 Nebraska songs in their original order. The band recorded the live material in April, without an audience, at Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. Springsteen played acoustic guitar and harmonica. Larry Campbell added guitar, tambourine, or mandolin on nine tracks. Charlie Giordano from the E Street Band contributed keyboards or glockenspiel to three songs.

Thom Zimny filmed the performance in black and white. The box set is available on four CDs plus Blu-ray or four LPs plus Blu-ray. According to Goodreads, Bruce Springsteen said, "The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence." 

You can buy the box set on his official website.